Game Manual Update Ep 2: The Intrepid Investigative Duo: The Second Episode Two

This biweekly installment of THE INTREPID INVESTIGATIVE DUO has arrived to kickstart your weekend! yaay! YAAAY!!!!!

Authors’ note: if you hate fun, then you can skip over the storyline we slaved over for an hour and just read the helpfully bolded/italicized/underlined bits. You uncultured swine.


“Oh just kill me now,” the investigator said wearily. “It’s another PD case.”

“Power distribution?” her partner asked, looking up from her papers.

“No,” the first sneered. “I meant a Disabled Ponies case. Yes, it’s a Power Distribution case, what did you think it was?”

“Wouldn’t that be DP?”

“What- oh come on, we both know continuity is irrelevant.”

The investigator known to a few select individuals as R.H. Speedy rolled her eyes and stood up. “So what’s the low-down on this one, then?” she asked.

“Irresponsible teenagers who keep switching from disabled to enabled. Messes with their heads. The organization came out with some new firmware to correct the calculations of Power and Energy in the PDP, as well as some TalonSRX updates for people hooked on analog encoders.

Authors’ note: The PDP, or Police Department of Police, is closely partnered with and sponsored by the Department of Redundancy Department. This message is brought to you by your friend, the Department of Redundancy Department. All hail the Department of Redundancy Department, which is your friend. The author(s) are finished with the authors’ note.

“So where are these updates supposed to be coming from, then? Besides the mysterious and extremely cool omniscient beings responsible for our existence, which I am now mentioning in flagrant violation of the fourth wall,” Speedy asked her partner.

“Hey wanna hear a joke?” the investigator known to some as O.J. Straws asked.

“What does this have to do with anything?” the other half of the duo asked.

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“Oh please dear lord Department of Redundancy Department, anything but this!” Speedy groaned.

“To get the electronics!” Straws grinned cheesily, like a fondu with a faulty wire that caused the entire restaurant to get flooded with cheese.


“Get it? Because the firmware update is from !!!!!!!!!”

Speedy gave her partner a withering look. “If that isn’t the worst joke I’ve ever heard in the entirety of the convoluted eternally-shifting space time continuum, then my name isn’t Romney Helen (of Troy) Speedy!”

Straws shrugged. “I do my best.”

“Your best is terrible.”

“Okay, that was just downright spitefull. Totally uncalled for.”


The investigative duo stood at the crime scene in the dark and ominous alleyway at midnight. Fog curled around their feet, and a wolf howled somewhere in the background (the zoo probably should have repaired the locks). There was a full moon that night, while simultaneously being the darkest night either had ever encountered, although neither was quite sure how to account for that discrepancy.

Suddenly, a mysterious, cryptic, obscure, covert, enigmatic, furtive, and inscrutable figure appeared from behind a corner that hadn’t been there moments earlier and which disappeared once the figure came into sight.

“Lavery,” Straws said, clenching her fists. “We meet again.”

“But wait a minute,” Speedy interrupted. “I thought he was a Pneumatic Pokemon!”

Lavery dismissed the objection mysteriously with a mysterious wave of his mysterious hand, while holding a mysterious diet coke. “That’s just my day job,” he explained.

Then, inexplicably, Gandalf appeared around the corner (which had rematerialized behind the duo) and violently murdered our dear protagonists.


They were investigating the robot post-match on a street which was almost definitely probably not exactly quite like a street in London, pondering the prohibition of re-enablement of or tethering to the robot after the match has ended, when the investigative duo heard an unmistakable wheezing and time-distorting sound fill the air.


A blue box faded into existence before their very eyes.

“Oh my God Department of Redundancy Department,” Straws said, her eyes widening.

“Could it be?” Speedy asked, her intrepid investigator’s jaw hanging slack with wonder.

The duo watched as the blue time-traveling box opened, and out stepped, with sonic screwdriver blazing, the new definition of tethering.

“Tethering includes any wired connection used to electrically energize and/or control elements on the ROBOT,” the new definition said, before disappearing back into its box and voyaging once more into the endless span of time and space.


Hi team. There was a slight miscommunication. In the previous segment, you were told that the investigative duo was violently murdered by Gandalf. What we meant to say was that for the Chairman’s Award presentation, teams are allowed to bring three students plus one mentor. We apologize for the confusion.

This has been the FRC Rules update, brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department, as well as by the CIO and the Acting Ensign CIO. Stay tuned for Episode Three: The Dark Knight Rises!
~CIO/Acting Ensign CIO